


Comforter

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11468058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: Not everything can be brought forward from an earlier time.





	Comforter

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2017 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #10, **Do Not Take the First Cab, Nor the Second, But the Third.** Close your eyes. Turn to your left and open them. Now incorporate the third item you looked at into today's work.

Of course the afghan was gone.

The knitted blanket had been a gift by the grateful wife of a wool broker; it had been made of vivid colours and segmented in squares and each square had featured a different type of star, with a spectacular 12-pointed one at the very center.

The afghan had been spread over his bed, and often when he spent the night awake and cogitating over a case he had wrapped himself in the comforter and it had been enough.

He had taken the faded thing with him when he’d retired and moved to Sussex. It had grown old just like him.

He had been preserved in honey, of all things. His papers and notes had survived, as had the sturdy furniture. But the soft bedclothes and perishables had vanished with time and neglect and misuse. Moths and time too had made the old wool comforter a mere memory.

The main room of the refurbished museum of 221b looked much the same as in his day. But he walked into the bedroom, to the blare of electric light, with a computer and a telescreen in the corner, and a bed with warm and comfortable manufactured fabrics atop it. It was secure, temperature-controlled as it had never been in his own time, and useful. It was all he needed for a room.

So when his birthday rolled around to the first January since being revived in this new century – and he wasn’t sure _which_ birthday to observe, as it had been 250 years since his birth in 1854, his body had been rejuvenated to his hale late-20s, and he had been 88 when he’d passed away in 1942 – Sherlock Holmes could only sit and stare at the great warm heavy spread he’d just unwrapped.

Beth Lestrade smiled. “Took a bit of my own sleuthing to find out about your old quilt – your time’s Lestrade remembered seeing it once, mentioned it to Great-great-grandma who remembered him saying it. Then it was just a matter of hunting down shops that sell yarn – excuse me, wool. There’s hobbyists for every old skill you can name, and knitters are nearly as fanatical as religious cultists. Sorry it’s not real wool, but I’m not a millionaire. Watson here researched the technique and did the actual work.”

“Once I’d ascertained the procedure, I was able to produce the desired item in six hours of straightforward manufacture,” the droid said.

“Of course it doesn’t look the same.” Beth shrugged. “You are Sherlock Holmes. If we’d said a word trying to get information from you about the design, you’d have deduced the whole thing.”

Holmes barely registered the voices of his friends. This afghan was in stripes of vibrant colours, each delineated in black; black stripes bracketed the ends. The material was a manufactured yarn that was warmer and lighter than sheep’s wool. The ends were fringed – and where the afghan itself was flawlessly made, the yarn-ends of the fringe were uneven, a trifle bedraggled. He smiled till his cheeks hurt. “You applied the fringe, Lestrade.”

“Yeah. Took me nearly as long to do that as it took your metal pal here to make the whole blanket.”

A few moments later, Watson turned to Beth Lestrade. “Have we offended him?”

“No.” Beth blinked hard. "It’s okay. Remember, men in his time covered their faces when they cried.”


End file.
